NEWS

The Congolese Constitution: A Critique

The Constitution: A Critique
by
George Bakaly Sembe,
Student of Law and Economics, London, Englandbsembe@yahoo.com

On February 20, 2006, the Democratic Republic of Congo adopted
a new constitution; the text was approved through a national
referendum held last December. The formal implementation of
the new constitution has delighted many pundits of Congolese
politics as if the contents of that seventy-seven page long
document would magically resolve what a Congolese professor
has called the 'social genocide' of the Congo. While it is true
that this might, indeed, be a step toward better governance,
it would be naive to assume that the Third Republic, ushered
in by the new constitution, will be any better than its predecessors.

There are two factors that should not be overlooked. First,
without the means to enforce it, a constitution is not worth
the paper it is written on. In 1991, President Mobutu's constitutional
term ended, yet he remained in power until 1997 when Laurent
Kabila's forces overthrew him. Moreover, in the last six years
of Mobutu's regime blatant violation of the constitution was
a de facto certainty. Using his praetorian guard, the Division
Speciale Presidentiele (Special Presidential Division-DSP),
Mobutu was able to subvert the will of the people as expressed
in the Conference Nationale Souveraine (Sovereign National Conference-CNS)
of 1991. Today, there exists at least three potent militias
in the Congo, and in the current context it is simply impossible
to predict how the warlords that were fighting for power from
1998-2003 will react if they were to lose that power in the
forthcoming elections due to be held this summer. The second
concern relates to the personal character of the crop of leaders
the international community has decided to work with in the
Congo, for while good institutions are certainly necessary in
every decent state, good men are an even bigger necessity. Events
throughout history have proved that, although Nelson Mandela
and Yasser Arafat were faced with essentially the same problem,
there is no doubt that the different outcomes were due to differences
in their characters. Similarly, in Iraq today no one can say
that America has not invested enough in terms of political,
military and financial capital to make that country work, yet
the personalities of the Iraqi leaders involved has made all
those effort fruitless.

As for the Congo, the leadership is made up of former warlords,
responsible for the death of more than five million people from
1996 to 2003, the greatest toll of casualties for any conflict
since World War II. In 1996, humanitarian organizations such
as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
reported that as many as 200,000 Rwandese refugees had 'disappeared'
in eastern Congo. There were reports that Hutus had been relentlessly
and aggressively sought out in forests and make-shift camps
around the DRC, and killed. While most of the victims were reportedly
shot dead, others were beaten to death by the AFDL and its allies.
Joseph Kabila, the current president, was a commander in the
AFDL army. The MLC, the movement of Jean Pierre Bemba, a vice
president, has been accused by the UN of committing human rights
abuses including cannibalism as starved troops fed on pygmies
in Northern Congo. Finally the RCD, the main rebel movement
of the 1998-2003 war, lead by Azarias Ruberwa, another vice
president, has encouraged what can only amount to ethnic cleansing
in North Kivu. Those three paramilitary groups and other lesser
entities, some of which are even more ruthless, form the Congolese
government. No high official has accepted at least partial responsibility
for the enormous death toll of the conflict. The only time when
some of these war criminals were brought to justice was when
9 Bangladeshi troops belonging to the UN peacekeeping force
in DRC (MONUC) were killed. Prior to the killings, Thomas Lubanga,
leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (Union of Congolese
Patriots-UPC), and Floribert Ndjabu Ngabu, leader of the Front
des Nationalistes et Integrationniste (Nationalist and Integrationist
Front-FNI), had ties to the government, the former a guest of
the Ministry of Defense and the latter an army general, despite
the fact that their militias were responsible for what UN humanitarian
chief Jan Egeland has called 'the killing fields of our generation'.

Thus, neither this new constitution nor the forthcoming elections
are likely to change much in the Congo. As long as those responsible
for the deaths of millions of Congolese remain unpunished, a
climate of insecurity and impunity will prevail, making any
real progress impossible. At a time when the 'international
community' is rejoicing at the eminent arrest of Ratko Mladic,
the 'Butcher of the Balkans', as well as the trial of Saddam
Hussein, it seems hypocritical that it is supporting the 'Butchers
of the Congo' in their bid for power.